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Duggan's plans include speedier Detroit house demolitions

Mayor-elect Mike Duggan told a group of community leaders Saturday that reducing the time it takes to tear down vacant houses and buildings in Detroit and making better use of grants aimed at tackling blight are part of his neighborhood revitalization plan.

Duggan, who was elected in November and will take over as Detroit's mayor in January, said he will not squander state and federal funding as past mayors have done, according to The Detroit News.

"We have turned back tens of millions of dollars in federal funds because we can't figure out what to do with the money," he said during the ARISE Detroit! annual breakfast.

In recent years, the city has lost federal funding it failed to use quickly enough.

The U.S. government announced in September that it would direct more than $100 million in grants to help Detroit tear down vacant buildings and spur job growth.

Gene Sperling, chief economic adviser to Obama, said then that the administration scrounged through the federal budget and found untapped money that "either had not flowed or had not gotten out or not directed to the top priorities for Detroit."

"Between the state programs, the federal programs and the blight programs here, there is more than enough money out there to transform this city," said Duggan, former chief executive of the Detroit Medical Center.

Duggan also said he will join a dozen other newly elected mayors from across the country next week at a luncheon with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.

"As he has said, he cannot do this thing by himself," ARISE Detroit! founder Luther Keith said of Duggan. "It's got to come up from the bottom, from the neighborhoods."

ARISE Detroit! is a coalition of more than 400 groups, churches, block clubs and businesses.

A judge Tuesday allowed Detroit to become the largest U.S. city into bankruptcy. State-appointed emergency manager Kevyn Orr filed for bankruptcy in July, saying the city's debt was $18 billion or more.

Orr has said he will have his plan of adjustment to get Detroit out of bankruptcy to federal Judge Steven Rhodes in early January.